Quotes About Erich Fromm

Authority is not a quality one person "has," in the sense that he has property or physical qualities. Authority refers to an interpersonal relation in which one person looks upon another as somebody superior to him.

Socialism is the abolition of human self-alienation, the return of man as a real human being.

Freedom, although it has brought [modern man] independence and rationality, has made him isolated and, thereby, anxious and powerless.

Reason is man's instrument for arriving at the truth, intelligence is man's instrument for manipulating the world more successfully the former is essentially human, the latter belongs to the animal part of man.

Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence.

Nationalism is our form of incest, is our idolatry, is our insanity. 'Patriotism' is its cult...Just as love for one individual which excludes the love for others is not love, love for one's country which is not part of one's love for humanity is not love, but idolatrous worship.

If it is a virtue to love my neighbor as a human being, it must be a virtue - and not a vice - to love myself, since I am a human being too.

Erich Fromm, he defines love as "the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth." Explaining further, he continues: "Love is as love does. Love is an act of will—namely, both an intention and an action. Will also implies choice. We do not have to love. We choose to love.

Psychology as a science has its limitations, and, as the logical consequence of theology is mysticism, so the ultimate consequence of psychology is love.

We... have created a greater material wealth than any other society in the history of the human race. Yet we have managed to kill off millions of our population in an arrangement which we call "war.

Human history begins with man's act of disobedience which is at the same time the beginning of his freedom and the development of his reason.

Man is the only animal for whom his own existence is a problem which he has to solve.

Today the function of psychiatry, psychology and psychoanalysis threatens to become the tool in the manipulation of man.

I see socialism in the direction, of management, of enterprise, by all who work in the enterprise.

The psychoanalyst Erich Fromm had made this point more than fifty years earlier: "Modern man thinks he loses something—time—when he does not do things quickly; yet he does not know what to

The psychoanalyst Erich Fromm had made this point more than fifty years earlier: "Modern man thinks he loses something—time—when he does not do things quickly; yet he does not know what to do with the time he gains except kill it." Fromm was right; people didn't use extra time earned to relax or connect with friends or family. Instead, they tried to cram more in.

Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence.